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Mid-List Miracle

With new technology, your book will be made to order.

For years, flat sales, skyrocketing celebrity advances, and the growth of discount chains have squeezed the book industrys profit margin to the point where many editors are reluctant to publish anything short of a megaseller. So while Stephen King does just fine, authors with less mass-market appeal have a hard time seeing print.

But writers and readers are about to receive a rare bit of good news. The Xerox Corporation has developed a new technology thats making it possible -- and profitable -- to print single copies of paperback books in a matter of minutes. One day soon, you may walk into a bookstore, ask for a copy of John Barths long-forgotten first novel (the one about suicide on a riverboat), and wait while a gothic-looking clerk prints you one behind the counter.

Though the project is in its infancy, its implications could be far-reaching: If it takes off, books need no longer be consigned to the out-of-print graveyard just because they dont sell in the millions. It is a revolution in the industry, says Xeroxs Ashley Shemain. You dont have to overprint . . . and you cut out warehousing and distribution costs. And if you take mid-list books, where you can sell 5,000 books in two years but dont want to store them over that time, you have a big opportunity to do print on demand.

The new system will never diminish the appeal of a nice juicy celebrity memoir, but by lowering production costs and eliminating storage costs, it could even out the businesss currently lopsided economics. Several publishers are already trying to make the most of the opportunity. Simon & Schuster, one of the few major publishers that still print their own books, has purchased six of the machines and is experimenting with them. I dont think it will have an impact on the sales of books in the general market, says Jack Romanos, the companys president, but its pretty exciting that it does give us the ability to keep more books in print. And two large distributors -- Ingram Book Company in La Vergne, Tennessee, and Baker & Taylor in North Carolina -- have established new printing services to provide out-of-print books on demand.

Ingram, which is currently negotiating printing rights with about 25 New York publishers, including McGraw-Hill, Random House, and Perseus Books, has already begun filling orders from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. But Larry Brewster, Ingrams vice-president, has been reluctant to trumpet the development before its fully under way. We want to make sure we can execute in high volume before we take this on the market in full force, he says. Because who knows? Barths Floating Opera could be the next Giles Goat-Boy, and everyone would want one.